NASA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NASA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Science & Discovery
The asteroid that wasn't: 1998 SH2 outed as an active comet
A NASA/JPL-led study in Nature Astronomy has reclassified near-Earth object 1998 SH2 as an active comet — now P/1998 SH2 — after tiny outgassing-driven accelerations and a faint tail gave it away during a 2025 close pass.
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Science & Discovery
The Meteorite That Crashed Through a New Jersey Roof Was Carrying Alien Amino Acids
Two years to the day after a fireball rattled New York City and a two-pound rock punched through a Hillsborough, NJ roof, scientists report the meteorite preserves sodium-carbonate salts and extraterrestrial amino acids brewed in briny fluids on a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid.
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Science & Discovery
The Ceiling Was an Illusion: NASA-Led Study Says Solar Storms Could Hit Earth Harder Than We Thought
A NASA-led analysis of over a million solar wind measurements finds the long-assumed "saturation" limit on geomagnetic storm intensity is a statistical artifact, not a real ceiling — meaning the worst space weather could still be ahead of us.
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Science & Discovery
James Webb's Biggest Discoveries So Far
From the most distant confirmed galaxy to overmassive black holes, a disputed biosignature, and proof the Hubble tension is real, here are JWST's most significant verified findings, sourced to NASA, ESA, and peer review.
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Science & Discovery
Beta Pictoris Gains a Third Confirmed World, Joining an Elite Club of Directly Imaged Systems
NASA's Exoplanet Archive confirmed Beta Pictoris d in its July 9 update, making Beta Pictoris only the second directly imaged system known to host more than two planets.
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Science & Discovery
Inside the Sun's 'Impossible' Thin Layer: NASA's COFFIES Center Cracks the Tachocline Mystery
A NASA-funded supercomputer study finds the Sun's razor-thin tachocline stays thin because it and the solar magnetic field are locked in a mutual feedback loop, resolving a decades-old puzzle tied to space weather forecasting.
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Science & Discovery
Webb Telescope Marks Fourth Anniversary by Revealing the Hidden Heart of Centaurus A
NASA's new Webb image of Centaurus A cuts through dust to resolve individual stars in a galaxy still reeling from a 2-billion-year-old collision, marking four years of the telescope's public images.
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Science & Discovery
X-Ray Light Echoes From Old Gamma-Ray Bursts Show the Milky Way's Arms Are Bigger Than We Thought
By timing X-ray rings that three historic gamma-ray bursts scattered off interstellar dust, astronomers measured purely geometric distances showing the Milky Way's outer spiral arms sit about 10% farther out than previously believed.
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Science & Discovery
NASA's TESS Spots a Super-Jupiter 40,000 Light-Years Away Using a Trick From Einstein
Astronomers used gravitational microlensing to pull a super-Jupiter called Gaia23bra b out of TESS's archived data — a planet-hunting trick that reaches 260 times farther than the satellite's usual transit method.
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Science & Discovery
Webb Reads the Atmosphere of a Giant Planet That Outlived Its Star
Webb has detected the first atmosphere ever seen on a planet transiting a white dwarf: WD 1856 b, a 4-to-11-Jupiter-mass giant that survived its star's death and now circles the stellar corpse every 34 hours, carrying clouds and probable methane.
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Science & Discovery
Marsquakes Reveal a Hidden Magma Engine Beneath the Red Planet's Crust
Seismic data from NASA's InSight lander points to vast, Earth-like magma systems deep inside Mars — built without plate tectonics, and possibly still fed by active mantle plumes.
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Science & Discovery
Hubble Catches a Tiny Galaxy Burning Off the Cosmic Fog, 1.4 Billion Years After the Big Bang
Astronomers used Hubble to catch ionizing UV light escaping a small, furiously star-forming galaxy in the reionization epoch — the first such detection, and direct evidence for how the early universe became transparent.
